The Crisis Battlesuit is the backbone of the Tau army, and an immediately recognizable touchstone to an entire genre of sc-fi action. Visually striking and tactically flexible, there is a lot to like about battlesuits despite they and the Tau being a demanding army to command. Even with their shortcomings though, battlesuits can own the opponent’s advancing line by raining down fire.

Time to don the mantle of the hero.

Crisis Suit Basics:

• Battlesuits are fairly cheap, and possess a statline that gives them staying power.
• They have access to almost every gun in the tau arsenal, making them cross-role easily.
• Their “jump-shoot-jump” ability makes them difficult to pin-down, and able to perform sneaky tactics for the skilled general.
• They provide something that nothing else in the tau army can—lots of shots, where you want them, on something that can survive counter fire. Like everything in the Tau codex though, battlesuits are pretty much through if caught in close combat.

Advanced Tactics:

• Battlesuits are all about mid to long range fire suppression thanks to their combination of traits and weapon slots. Strongly consider equipping the missile pod + plasma rifle combo.
• Battlesuits are the Tau codices’ tough guys, but they still need finesse to succeed. Target selection, markerlight hits, and the unit’s jetpack move are essentials.
• A battlesuit’s maneuverability makes it very easy for them to gain cover. Consider jumping them in front of, and then behind a line of kroot or advancing devilfish so that you always gain clear line of sight, and then evade.
• Deep striking is almost always a gamble that doesn’t pay off, because battlesuit’s loose their ability to use their jetpack move during the turn that they arrive.
• Battlesuit’s have a disappointingly mediocre BS. If you want their firing its most optimal, get some markerlights on their targets.
• Complexity isn’t always a good thing. Although the battlesuits come with a ton of options, they rarely benefit your army by taking them.
• While battlesuits have an attractive S5, they’re still terrible in close combat. Since they’re so useful for a tau army, it benefits you to do whatever you can to avoid being caught by melee attackers.

Battlesuits count as jump infantry, so you can get a cover save thanks to defending units. For the Greater Good!

War Gear

Few units in the game still come with as many options as XV8 suits, but most of this gear has become obsolete or is too expensive for practical use. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s available:

• Weapons systems are ultimately what the battlesuit is all about.
  • Burst cannon: The STR5 standard is a fair choice for battlesuits, but only if you’re fighting horde armies. The Tau have enough STR5 shooting from other sources that a burst cannon on your powerful suits is usually wasted fire.
  • Flamer: I would only take these in the twin-linked variety, because if you’re close enough to use them, you’re close enough to be charged by whatever isn’t burned to death. In general, these should be avoided, but if you know that you’ll be facing imperial guard, orks, or tyranid, they can come in handy.
  • Fusion Cannon: While the melta traits of this gun are attractive, there are better platforms for this weapon than an XV8 battlesuit. Basically, if you can use it, you’re going to be charged on the next turn—and killing a single tank is almost never worth it. Use piranhas to speed fusion cannons to targets, and keep your suits safe laying down cover fire.
  • Missile Pod: Now we’re talking. Excellent range, solid stopping power, and a crazy cheap price tag make the missile pod almost a mandatory choice.
  • Plasma Rifle: After the missile pod, this is my go-to gun. Although expensive, it gives you the combination of high STR and low AP that makes it a serious threat to your enemies key units, like terminators or monstrous creatures.
• Blacksun Filter: Since battlesuits will usually be fighting at range, blacksun filters can become handy, though the current edition of the game uses nightfighting only in one game turn.
• Drone Controller: The ability to take drones can be handy, but remember that if you have more drones than battlesuits in your unit then you most use their majority statistics, which is no good. Keeping a shield drone on hand to absorb melta, or lascannon shots is never a bad idea though.
• Multi-tracker: Mandatory if your battlesuit isn’t sporting a twin-linked system.
• Shield Generator: Taking the shield generator gives you very little benefit over what a shield drone, especially since the kinds of the things you want to defend against will instant kill a battlesuit if you fail the invulnerable save anyway—you may as well have it kill a drone!
• Target Lock: A perfect example of why the tau codex is due for an update—references about rules that aren’t even in the game anymore.
• Targeting Array: A great choice if you a utilizing a twin-linked weapon system, such as a missile pod or fusion blaster, or if your list is short on markerlights.

Don't shoot at more than your guns can handle. Targets like this Rhino are sure things for XV8s.

Off the Sprue

Battlesuits have a solid model, suitably dramatic and tough looking. The kit comes with almost every weapon choice available (except for the ion blaster and airbursting frag), as well as the primary wargear options. The suits limbs are very easy to convert, letting you give your suits some great poses. Overall the kit is very paintable, so long as you’re good at painting smooth coats; there are lots of broad surfaces. Magnetizing weapons is easy, given its size. Overall a good kit, though more variants for heads, etc. would be great. Here’s hoping for an update to accompany the next codex.

Chaosmailorder.com is extending the 25% off of retail sale on GW products until Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012.

Nothing makes your game board complete like some classy scatter terrain—especially forests or vegetation. GW’s “Citadel Wood” can give you a detailed set of trees which covers about a 1’x1’ area for about $25… but for $25 dollars I could cover an entire board with forests.  Creating forest pieces is probably one of the easiest terrain projects out there, making it something even first-timers can accomplish with great results.  Moreover, your local craft store probably has so much variety in their artificial plant stock that you’ll be able to create a cohesive theme of many different styles of forests.  Here’s what you’ll need:

• Some fake plants
• Foamcore (or cardboard if you’re in a pinch)
• Your glue gun with translucent glue.
• Your modeling knife
• A few shades of paint to match the theme of your project

Here’s how to do it:

First, go shopping. Hunt down sales and coupons for artificial plants at your local craft store. You probably won’t be needing any of the expensive, flowery plants, so you can get off cheap in most cases.  A little bit goes a long way here.

Nothing makes you feel like a man like going into the floral department of your local craft store.

Next, create a base for your section of forest. Check out my previous blog entry “Custom Bases” for steps on how to easily create bases out of foam core. I’ve seen some players create large templates of forest, but I think this is boring; it limits you to using the same shape of forest every game. I prefer creating smaller based pieces of terrain that are more modular.

You can get lots of bases out of a single sheet of foamcore.

Clip, prune, or trim your fake plants in a way that makes sense. Use interior wires to give your foliage shape. Usually you can even leave the stems in place as tree trunks. Most plants will have leaves which create realistic looking shrubs or bowers with no alteration, but you can also get create to create weird, alien looking trees.

Now, determine where you’re going to place the plants on your bases. Consider adding a second layer of foam core to that small area, this way when you glue the plant into the base it will have more foam to stick to.

I used a small chunk of polystyrene to add depth.

Glob on the glue, and stick the base of your foliage into the foam core. I like to twist the stems of my plants so that I maximize the coverage of hot glue. Next I take small rips of scrap foamcore and glue them around the bases of my mounds to make it look more realistic as well as add strength to the bond.

Small groupings are OK, but always leave room for models!

Finally, paint the base of your forest with a three layer color scheme to fit the theme. I’ve been thinking a lot about Dark Sun lately, so decided to make this piece desert themed. These spiky cacti look great when set against simple browns.

Paint order: black, dark brown, brown, light brown, beige.

With an afternoon’s work, you can have enough great looking terrain to cover an entire table! This is a great project for your group as a break between normal play, or when you wife wants to spend time making X-Mas decorations!

Jungles and deserts-- no problem. Swamps are a little bit tougher...

Necrons deserve this update.

New and a Hundred Times Improved

I don’t think any army in the 40K universe has been as marginalized as the Necrons, which is a shame. Just look at 5^th edition’s publication history: six imperial codices, four of them space marine-based! That’s a serious proliferation of power armor, and damaging to the variety of the game. While the new Necron codex and models are especially great for old-school Necron players, it’s just as good for everyone else as well. Here’s why.

Necrons represent a very important element in the sci-fi landscape of Warhammer, one which has hardly been touched on in the past because of GW’s obsession with all things Imperial. They encompass the coolness of both the undead, as well as artificial intelligence. After I became a fan of the hobby and introduced it to friends, many of them were immediately drawn to the Necrons. Their art, style, and photography in the main rulebook is very alluring for new players. After all, they were the bad-guys (and who doesn’t like the bad guys?), and the idea of playing an entire army of terminator-like skeletons is way cool. Even newcomers to the game are probably familiar with the idea of Space Marines—even if it’s just through the images “borrowed” by video games like Star Craft, which makes something as strikingly different as the Necrons a fun alternative.

The illusion wore off after a few games, when we realized that the old Necron codex offered fewer units, fewer options, and a pitiful level of competitiveness. No matter how much one may love an army’s backstory or models, the sting of constantly losing gets old. That’s why we hardly see Necrons at tournaments, or even local clubs. You can’t win with them, at least not consistently or against skilled opponents, simply because of the obsolescence imposed on the Necrons by the favoring of other armies. How many tournaments have you been to where you fought almost entirely Space Marines? Am I the only one who thinks that humanities ultimate defenders are more interesting when they’re fighting things that AREN’T humans?

The Necron update is great for everyone because it adds an important element to the universe that we spend tons of time, and money in. The new rules will create unique games and give our Space Marine armies something to fight, making them (and all the other xenos armies) more fun. It strengthens the 40K story by bringing new style and depth to what’s out there in the galaxy. It gives us something new to look at on the table, and new challenges for our armies to overcome.

Most of all, it gives current Necron players the satisfaction of knowing that they were right all along, and that when everyone else jumped onboard with the flavor-of-the-month Space Marine army, they were the ones who were keeping it real the whole time.

Rejoice in the opening of the Necron tombs, and hope that we’re given more new stuff down the road to broaden the horizon of the game.

Embrace the Souless Legion

If you’ve ever read my posts on this blog, you know that I love orks. If you’ve ever played against my orks, you know that they stomp faces in. Despite the numerous notches on the ork’s belt, I still get queasy waiting for other armies to blow huge holes in my assault. Though it doesn’t always happen, I know it easily can; all those armor values of 10 and 6+ armor saves are pretty much asking to be ripped apart. The orks prove themselves though, adding human, eldar, and tau heads to their trophy racks regularly. So, while it may hurt me in the long run, here are some tips you can use to counter the green horde.

Know Your Foe. Orks can really only do one thing well: fight. If they aren’t in your face, the battle is going your way. Their shooting, while probably underrated, is still bad. Lootas are their only good long-ranged units (“good” being relative, we’re talking orks here), and even their “tank-hunting” weapons only hit every once every three shots. The true threat are power klaws, which are every where. Klaws are the best weapon orks have, and pack a wallop. Ork mobs are dense but easy to kill when not in cover, and even easier when you initiate the attack. When charging, they can hit very hard, and their large mobs mean lots of bodies you’ll have to deal with once they’ve got their hands on you. This charge will mostly come from one of their open-topped vehicles, which aren’t very powerful, but incredibly good at getting their cargo in.

Here are of the biggest ork weaknesses you can exploit:

• Lazy. Orks have mediocre stats, and can easily be defeated if you get the jump on them. Their low initiative and strength means that they’re  outmatched if you can initiate the charge.
• No Psychic Defense. Select and use your most destructive powers, because the orks can’t do anything to stop them.
• Horrible Armor. Orks die like crazy. They love it. Properly placed flamer or blast templates will wipe the floor with them. Favor these weapons over single shot weapons.
• No Long Ranged Support. Lootas aside, ork shooting only occasionally does anything. This lets you move through fire lanes without fear of getting hit. Just be ready for the charge.
• Poor Vehicle Armor. Orks only have one armor facing in their entire codex that’s above 12, and plenty of them that are 10. This means that you can save points in your list by purchasing lower strength weapons (that often have more shots) instead  of expensive single-shot weapons like meltas.

Beware. When you’re outnumbered 3:1 by a bunch of screaming greenskins, knowing which one’s to shoot first becomes important.

• Big Meks: While a warboss is a beast in assaults, big meks provide much more to an ork list because of their kustom force fields. Know where the field is, and when shooting at it is a waste of time.
• Nobz!: No matter where they are, or what vehicle they’re in—they are your priority. Nobz murder everything, and are very tough. Power and low AP weaponry becomes very useful here; STR 8 blasts are even better because it’ll cause instant death.
• Killa Kanz. A top competitor for best all unit in the ork codex, killa kanz are very destructive in close combat and quite capable at shooting as well. Their grotzooka is one of the best deck-sweepers in the game, and will make mince-meat of exposed infantry.
• Warbikers/Deffkoptas. Tough, fast, and versatile, these two units also have twin-linked, strength 5 guns, which can perform surprisingly well.
• Trukks. OK, so everyone laughs that trucks are lame and easy to blow up, and they’re right, but what’s important is what happens if you DON’T blow them up—you get smashed by the orks charging out of them.
• Gretchin. For some reason people keep leaving my gretchin alive, which is never a good idea. They’re sneaky, dirt cheap, and are perfect for holding objectives in cover– kill them before they get there!

Tactics. Here are a few tricks that’ll stop the horde in their tracks.

• Don’t face it head on. Ork armies take up a lot of space to deploy. Add to this the fact that they won’t be shooting much on turn one, means that you can count on being safe for the first turn. Use this to your advantage by castling up in the corner. This will take orks on the far side of the horde too far away to traverse the diagonal distance across the board to get you. In the best case it can take almost half of the horde out of the equation for several turns.
• Transparent Strategy. With the possible exception of kommandos, you know exactly what the ork general is going to do: the only thing his army can—charge! Be prepared for this by getting your fire lanes open and taking down transports. You know what will happen if he gets to you.
• Dealing with the Kustom force field. This is easily the best piece of wargear in the ork codex, and it will ruin your day because it essentially stops 50% of your shooting attacks from getting through. This is huge, and you will waste your time trying to get through it. Go after the sure thing—that truck or buggy speeding up the flanks—rather than beat your head against the wall trying to blow up the battlewagon with lascannons. Adjust your line to deal with the wagon once it’s there, rather then waste your one or two turns of firing on an gamble.
• Vehicle Blocking. Against orks, your vehicles become more important for protecting you, rather then moving you. Consider disembarking your troops the turn before they get to you, then pivot your vehicles to expose their profiles to the orks. This will create a wide wall that will block the orks from getting to your troops. The orks can only charge one unit, and if they want to to get to your troops that means it’ll have to be the vehicle, which means your infantry will be a good position for a counterattack.
• The Right Weapons. Meltas are wasted on orks, flamers are not. A single template will cut a huge wedge right out of the boyz.